A presentation of the situational approach the functional notional approach to syllabus design

The Situational Approach to Syllabus Design Introduction: The Development of the Situational Approach Few language teachers today are familiar with the term Situational Language Teachin

A Presentation 

of  The Situational Approach  

& 

The Functional‐Notional  

Approach 

to   Syllabus Design 

          Presented by: 

Tarfa Ash‐Shammari   Dina Al‐Sibai   

Dr. Ali Shehadeh  ENG 528  November, 2005 

The Situational Approach to Syllabus Design

Introduction: The Development of the Situational Approach

Few language teachers today are familiar with the term Situational Language Teaching, which

refers to an approach to language teaching developed from the 1930s to the 1960s by British

applied linguists Harold Palmer and A S Hornby, two of the most prominent figures in British

twentieth-century language teaching In fact, they attempted to develop a more “communicative”

approach to language teaching Like many others, Palmer and Hornby believed that a

grammatical or structural syllabus was neither efficient, nor effective for language learning since

this model offers language samples outside their social and cultural contexts which makes

transfer of learning from the classroom to the real world quite difficult Hornby’s Guide to

Patterns and Usage in English, first published in 1954, is based on a sequenced language

syllabus together with procedures for introducing each new item by linking it to a particular

classroom situation and in this way, meaning would be established Current approaches to

situational syllabus design, however, go beyond the classroom and introduce various “real-life”

situations Another active proponent of the Situational Approach in the 1960s was the Australian

George Pittman Pittman and his colleagues were responsible for developing an influential set of

teaching materials based on the Situational Approach, which were widely used in Australia, New

Guinea, and the Pacific territories

Situational Syllabi Central Premises, Logic, Syllabus Type, Assumption, Components, & Types

Central Premises: The main focus of a situational syllabus is on the use of language as a

social medium The linguistic premise of this syllabus is that language is always used in context,

never in isolation and the choice of linguistic forms are restricted by social situations The

educational premise is that there should be a different syllabus for different learners, based on

the individual needs of the learners

Logic: The logic behind a situational syllabus is that if the content of language teaching is

formed by a range of real or imaginary behavioral or experiential situations in which a foreign

language is used, the situational syllabus provides for concrete contexts within which to learn

language structures, thus making it easier for most learners to visualize, and this, in turn, helps

in promoting students’ motivation

Syllabus Type: Since situational syllabi are organized in terms of the purposes for which

people are learning the language and the kinds of language performance that are necessary to

meet those purposes, situational syllabi are commonly referred to as product-oriented, analytical

syllabi whereby learners are required to achieve situational language accuracy

Assumption: The designer of a situational syllabus attempts to predict those situations in

which the learner will find him/herself, and uses these situations (e.g., a restaurant, an airplane,

a post office, etc.) as a basis for selecting and presenting language content The underlying

assumption is that language is related to the situational contexts in which it occurs

Components: A situational syllabus will typically include the following elements:

1 The physical context in which the language event occurs (such as finding a room, ordering a

meal, buying stamps, or getting around town)

2 The channel of communication Is it spoken or written?

3 The language activity Is it productive or receptive?

4 The number and the character of the participants

5 The relationships between the participants and the type of activity

Obviously, different syllabuses will result for different types of learners The exact contents of a

syllabus will be the result of a careful behavioral prediction and will consist of an inventory of

language situations and a description of the linguistic content of each of these situations

Types: There are three types of situational syllabi:

1 Concrete: Situations are acted out to specific settings using specific patterns

2 Mythical : Situations depend on fictional characters in a fictional place

3 Limbo: Specific setting of the situation is of little or no importance What is important is the

particular language involved

The Effect of the Situational Approach on Language Teaching

Language teaching begins with the spoken language Material is taught orally before it is

presented in written form Situational language teaching adopts an inductive approach to the teaching of grammar

Explanation is therefore discouraged and the learner is expected to deduce the meaning of a

particular structure or vocabulary item from the situation in which it is presented Extending structures and vocabulary to new situations takes place by generalization

The learner is expected to apply the language learned in a classroom to situations outside

the classroom

Accuracy in both pronunciation and grammar is regarded as crucial, and errors are to be

avoided at all costs

Automatic control of basic structures and sentence patterns is fundamental to reading and

writing skills, and this is achieved through speech work

Practice techniques employed often consist of guided repetition and substitution activities,

including chorus repetition, dictation, drills, and controlled oral-based reading and writing tasks

An Evaluation of Situational Syllabi

The greatest strengths of the situational syllabus are:

Explicit attention is paid to the influence of social factors on language choice, especially to

registeral variation (i.e when to be formal versus informal)

It may motivate learners to see that what they are learning is “real-life” language that actually

meets their most pressing everyday communication needs

The shortcomings of the situational syllabus, however, are quite a few:

While certain language functions will most likely occur in certain physical situational settings

such as “At the Post Office” or “In a Restaurant” ”, this does not necessarily mean that all the

language forms that will be used can be predicted One may go into a restaurant, not to order a

meal, but only to ask for directions to a nearby museum Hence, a situational syllabus will be

limited for students whose needs are not encompassed by the situations in the syllabus Simply

said, language users are real people – not just robots in situations The presence of “artificial” dialogues in many existing materials, which both illustrate

recurrent grammatical patterns and present practical phrases for a situational context, often

include discourse that would never be used in natural language Thus, language as practiced in

the classroom and language as spoken in the real world will often have little in common

In general, there are no clearly defined criteria for sequencing material

In conclusion, a situational syllabus is probably most appropriate for short-term special-purpose

courses as in giving prospective tourists survival skills or preparing service personnel, such as

waiters or waitresses, to deal with routine requests or fire fighters to handle emergency

situations It has limited potential for the language learner interested in acquiring global

language proficiency

Practical Demonstration: On the following page is an example of a lesson plan based on the

situational approach This plan is mainly designed for an “intermediate level” Speaking class

(Please also see Appendix A for examples of teaching grammar in situational contexts)

RETURNING DEFECTIVE ITEMS TO STORES

Objective: To improve grammar, build vocabulary and develop listening and speaking skills associated with a particular topic or situation & to develop

assertiveness techniques for returning defective items to stores

Situation:

Mrs Lopez bought a pair of shoes on sale She wore them one week and noticed the sewing was starting to come out She took them back to the shoe store and this is what

happened:

Salesman: Can I help you?

Lopez: Yes, I bought these shoes last week and now they are starting to fall apart

I would like my money back (x2)

S: Do you have the sales receipt?

L: No, I don't, but I want my money back (x2)

S: I am sorry, but we have to have the receipt

L: I understand what you're saying, but I want my money back If you can't help me, who can? (x2)

S: No one You have to have your sales slip

L: I understand what you are saying but I want my money back If you can not help me, who can? (x2)

S: Well, the manager But he will tell you the same thing I am telling you

L: I want to talk to the manager, please (x2)

S: Just a minute

Salesman goes through a door in the back of the store, comes back in a few minutes with another man

The salesman points to Mrs Lopez and the other man comes toward Mrs Lopez

Manager: Hello, I am the manager Did you have a problem with something?

L: I bought these shoes last week and they are starting to fall apart and I want my money back (x2)

M: Let me see the shoes, please Oh, this is no problem at all We can fix these for you again in no time

L: I don't want them repaired I want my money back (x2)

M: It is not our policy to refund money

L: I understand what you are saying, but I want my money back (x2)

M: Listen, Mrs .?

L: Lopez

M: Mrs Lopez, if we refunded everybody's money, we would have a bookkeeping nightmare We just can

not afford that Surely you can understand

L: I understand what you are saying, but I want my money back (x2)

M: But you have worn these for a week We can not give you all your money back

L: I know I only wore them for a week and they started falling apart and I want my money back (x2)

M: (Sigh) O.K., come with me and I will see that you get it back

Instructions to the teacher:

1 Explain the philosophy behind the technique, namely, persistence pays off Point out to the

student that limited language ability should not be a disadvantage for them with this type of

technique

2 The teacher first presents a recording of the dialogue and students follow silently

3 The teacher does the following:

a Choral imitation in which students all together or in large groups repeat what the

teacher has said This works best if the teacher gives a clear instruction like "Repeat," or

"Everybody"

b Elicitation, in which the teacher, using mime, prompt words, gestures, pictures etc.,

gets students to ask questions, make statements, or give new examples of the pattern For

example, have students tell about times when they were wronged as customers and what, if

anything, they did about it

c Substitution drilling, in which the teacher uses cue words (words, pictures, numbers,

names, etc.) to get individual students to mix the examples of the new patterns

d Question-answer drilling, in which the teacher gets one student to ask a question and

another to answer until most students in the class have practiced

e Correction, in which the teacher indicates by shaking his/her head, repeating the error,

etc., that there is a mistake and invites the student or a different student to correct it

The Functional-Notional Approach to Syllabus Design

Introduction

A functional-notional syllabi is a semantically-based syllabus which can be considered as the most popular alternative to the structural (formal/grammatical) syllabus because it (a) combines two important elements to syllabus design: firstly, meanings (the notions) and secondly,

communicative acts (the functions), & (b) was one of the first syllabi to discourage the

behavioral input-output chain in which the highest priority is given to formal accuracy

The Development of the Functional-Notional Syllabus,

its Pioneers & Major Advocates

Traditionally, language learning syllabuses for schools and colleges were structured around the grammar of the target language, dealing with categories such as noun classes or verb tenses systematically in turn and they assumed that the learner’s goal was a complete, in-depth

mastery of the target language, and also that the learner would be willing to study for some years before applying practically what had been learned However, by the 1970s language educators were increasingly dissatisfied with such formalistic views, which seemed increasingly out of line with the needs and interests of the new mass learners of foreign languages coming forward in the postwar years Both for busy adult learners with vocational needs and for new-style, less academic learners of school age, it was realized that motivation depended largely on much more immediate ‘payoff’ in terms of the usefulness for practical purposes of what was taught A search began, therefore, for types of language syllabi which could offer at least limited communicative ability from an early stage The situational syllabus, as we have just discussed, was such an attempt and now we turn to a second, more influential, type of early

“communicative” syllabi; namely, the functional-notional syllabus

In the seventies, it became even more apparent that second language students were unable to fully express themselves nor were they able to do so with precision They were quite capable of imitating and memorizing the language, but could not use it in context The Council of Europe took on the challenge to find another means of teaching/learning a second language In 1971, a group of linguists, now known as the Expert Group, was invited by the Committee of Out-of-School Education of the Council of Cultural Cooperation to study the needs of European

students and to enquire into whether it was feasible to create better and more effective

conditions for language learning by adults

As the initial reports of the Group were received favorably, their mandate was generalized in

1978 to cover all levels and types of language learning, including schools and universities and for those learners who need to become functional in a language, outside the traditional school curriculum They developed a large and cohesive body of work, the most notable of which is Van Ek’s “Threshold Level” of the Council of Europe which is in the form of a document and it includes a list of situations, topics, general and specific notions and adequate language forms,

as well as some methodological implications In fact, the functional-notional basic principles to syllabus design are described in Threshold level English authored by Van Ek and Alexander,

1980 The Council of Europe activity proposed new, functional-notional syllabus models for foreign languages, which have become internationally influential

Among the linguistic philosophers, applied linguists such as David Wilkins (1972) borrowed a functional view of language Wilkins realized that it was possible to group language items for teaching purposes not only in terms of the grammatical category to which they belonged but also in terms of the language function they performed Thus, for example, a range of

grammatically varied language could be taught together to exemplify functions such as

‘apologizing’, ‘thanking’, ‘requesting’, etc

Premises, Components &

Characteristics of a Functional-Notional Syllabus Premises: A functional-notional syllabus is primarily based not on a linguistic analysis but on

an analysis of learners' social and/or vocational communicative needs This syllabus holds that

the classification of skill levels should be based on what people want to do with the language

(functions) or in terms of what meanings people want to convey (notions) As such, the syllabus

is based on the following premises: (1) communication is meaningful behavior in a social and

cultural context that requires creative language use rather than synthetic sentence building, (2)

language is constructed around language functions and notions; functions such as evaluating,

persuading, arguing, informing, agreeing, questioning, requesting, expressing emotions and

semantico-grammatical notions such as time, quantity, space, location, and motion The aim

of this approach was to transfer these functions to acts of communication

Components:

The essential components found in functional-notional syllabi are as follows:

1 The situations in which the foreign language will be used A situation will always include the following: the participants, the place, & the time

2 Topics, and what the learner will be able to do with these, for example, everyday interactions, such as buying food, giving directions, are offering advice, etc

3 The language activities in which the learner will engage

4 The language functions which the learner will perform For example:

1 Personal = expressing one’s thoughts or feelings (e.g., love, joy, pleasure, happiness) and the everyday feelings (e.g., hunger, thirst, fatigue, sleepiness, etc.)

2 Interpersonal =Enabling us to establish and maintain desirable social and working relationships (e.g., greetings and leave takings, introducing people to others, expressing joy at another’s success, extending – accepting – declining invitations, apologizing, interrupting another speaker politely, etc.)

3 Directive = Attempting to influence the actions of others (e.g., discouraging someone from pursuing a course of action, persuading someone to change his point of view, warning someone, etc.)

4 Referential = talking or reporting about things, actions, events, or people in the environment in the past or in the future; talking about language (what is termed the metalinguistic function (e.g., identifying items or people in the classroom, the school the home, or paraphrasing, summarizing, or translating (L1 to L2 or vice versa), etc.)

5 Imaginative =Discussions involving elements of creativity and artistic expression (e.g., discussing a poem, a story, a piece of music, a play, a painting, a film, a TV program or creating rhymes, poetry, stories or plays, etc.)

5 The general notions which the learner will be able to handle Notions are the interaction of categories of meaning and grammatical form Examples of notions are time (time relation: past tense, present tense; duration: until, since), quantity (countable, uncountable), space (dimensions locations, motion) and so on

6 The specific (topic related) notions which the learner will be able to handle

7 The language forms the learner will be able to use These forms are usually referred to as exponents which are the language utterances or statements that stem from the function, the situation and the topic

8 The degree of skill the learner will be required to display Characteristics: The following are the main characteristics of the functional-notional approach:

1 a functional view of language focusing on doing something through language

2 a semantic base, as opposed to a grammatical or a situational base

3 a learner-centered view of language learning

4 a basis in the analysis of learner needs for using language that is reflected in goals, content selection and sequencing, methodology, and evaluation

5 learner-centered goals, objectives, and content organization reflecting authentic language behavior and offering a spiraling development of content

6 learning activities involving authentic language use

7 testing focused on ability to use language to react to and operate on the environment

Logic, Syllabus Type, Assumptions, & Philosophy Behind Functional-Notional Syllabi Logic: The logic behind the functional-notional syllabus is that if the goal is a general

competence in language, language content will be context-dependent, drawing ideas from sociolinguistics and viewing language as interpersonal rather than a personal behavior As a result, a functional-notional based syllabus will take communicative language functions as the leading element, with structural organization being largely determined by the order already established by the functional sequence

Syllabus Type: The functional-notional syllabus is considered as an analytical syllabus which

is based on the notion of general competence in language as the goal Wilkins (1976) explains,

“Much greater variety of linguistic structure is permitted from the beginning and the learner’s task is to approximate his own linguistic behavior more and more closely to the global

language,” (p 1) Since this type of approach to language teaching anticipates that certain language functions will be acquired at the end, this type of syllabus, like the situational syllabus, has been categorized as a product-oriented syllabus

Assumption: this type of syllabus makes the assumption that the learner's needs,

motivations, characteristics, abilities, limitations and resources are the point of departure

Selection from the components of the syllabus will thus be made in terms of the learner and in terms of relevance to his communicative purposes This means that the whole system must be needs-oriented The needs of both society and the individual must be studied, and in particular the specification of language-learning objectives must be made according to what it is that the learner wants to achieve through language

Philosophy: This type of syllabus has been developed from a sociolinguistic viewpoint with the primary purpose of identifying the elements of a target language which its learners, as members of a particular group and with particular social and occupational purposes in mind, most need to know Hence, the driving force behind the syllabus is to identify the language functions and notions which the learner may wish to perform acts such as ‘advising’,

‘requesting’, ‘informing’, etc (functions) in the ‘future’ (notion)

The Effect of the Functional-Notional Approach on Language Teaching Pedagogy

By the mid-1970's, new textbooks incorporating a functional dimension began to appear, while, instead of having such chapter or unit headings as “Articles Before a Vowel Sound” or

”Present Perfect Simple Tense”, such textbooks now included titles like “Ask for, Give &

Refuse Permission” and “Expressing Personal Opinions” since such syllabi were organized

on the basis of communicative functions rather than on grammatical structures Further, the placement of items in the syllabus usually corresponded to real world language For example, since the Present Perfect is frequently used, it is included at the beginning levels of

instruction

As for the effect of the functional-notional approach on classroom teaching, what the learner wants to communicate is taken as its starting point A functional-notional approach begins by assessing learners' communicative needs This may be done intuitively, based on

experience, and/or by means of questionnaires or interviews Language teaching is then organized in terms of content rather than form In its purest form, a language program

founded on functional-notional principles would consist of sequenced sets of oral and written functions, beginning with those most needed for survival and concluding at a proficiency level sufficient for the learner to communicate successfully, but not natively or near-natively, in most situations requiring the non-technical use of language This level, in actuality,

corresponds to what has been termed the "Threshold Level" of communication in Europe

As a result, priority is given to (a) sentences in combination instead of the sentence as the

basic unit in language teaching, (b) meaning (or communication) over form which reduces the

attention given to grammar and the importance assigned to grammatical accuracy, (c)

participation in authentic language use, (d) fluency and appropriateness in learner

performance over formal accuracy, (e) speaking and listening skills in class, & (f) less

controlled (subjective) testing

An Evaluation of Functional-Notional Syllabi

The learners learn how to use language to express authentic communicative purposes Learners may be motivated by the opportunity to use real-world language to express their

own purposes, ideas and emotions The syllabus is easily expandable and admission of students into the syllabus is possible at

any time

It promotes language variation since students may choose a variety of expressions and a

number of grammatical patterns for each communicative function

The functional-notional syllabus seemed a very sensible idea at the time; however, even

Wilkins himself admitted that there are problems in defining and specifying such a syllabus -

due to the enormous complexity of the task of planning the content of language syllabuses in

this way

The lists which appeared in the Council of Europe syllabuses are simply random selections

of functions, topics and exponents, for example:

Topics (e.g.,Identification, Health and welfare, Food and drink, etc.)

The main problem with such lists is the difficulty of defining functions with precision and

clarity The absence of set conditions (or contextual factors) which limit or determine

interpretation of a given function means that there is at best some ambiguity, and, at worst, a

total misunderstanding over what is meant by such functions as, for example, expressing

intention, expressing one is/is not obliged to do something or expressing dissatisfaction

A single language function, for instance, “inviting” may be expressed in many different

ways by using different exponents for different contexts; e.g., formal vs informal contexts For

learners, this sometimes causes confusion and frustration which results from their inability to

determine which exponent to use in a given situation, especially at the beginning levels

There are also difficulties of selecting and grading function and form Clearly, the task of

deciding whether a given function (i.e persuading), is easier or more difficult than another

(i.e approving), is not an easy task Some have argued that the major problem with a purely

functional-notional approach is that in attempt to sequence the functions in an organized

manner, one leaves grammatical structures unsequenced, which is not advisable in the light

of both cognitive learning psychology and research that indicates the existence of a natural

order of acquisition of language structures

Some have argued that the finite inventories of functions in functional-notional syllabuses

are not different from inventories of grammar items; for example, instead of learning “the

simple past”, learners might now be required to “talk about the things you did last weekend”

Hence, the problems are basically the same; being able to perform certain functions does not

equal language competence as a whole

It is a fact that the functional-notional approach is exclusively concerned with the target language, and so all the cross-cultural concerns of communicative competence oriented approaches simply disappear However, teaching conventional complaints to Japanese students is rather different from teaching complaints to, for example, Latin American students Whereas Latin Americans have rules in Spanish which are very similar to American rules, the Japanese do not complain in Japanese, so the very function of “complaining” has to be

learned as well as its linguistic form In general, functional-notional syllabi don’t work very well

in situations with diverse students

A Few Concluding Remarks on Functional-Notional Syllabi

Some “communicative” educators, who have forced students into premature language

production without error correction, have probably done more harm than good Sound

syllabus design must recognize that semantic and linguistic considerations are forever

interrelated and that no approach can deal solely with either grammatical patterns or

situational settings or communicative language It is firmly believed that language learning materials should incorporate both formal and functional elements

Such an integrated approach, which brings the best grammatical and functional models to second language teaching and learning, would permit instant language use in communicative situations but would not disadvantage those learners who want to become proficient in the foreign language Unfortunately, this is easier said than done Few commercially available instructional materials facilitate the implementation of such an integrated syllabus design Individuals in charge of language programs must still adapt and adjust existing materials to include both structural and functional-notional components (See Appendix B for a lesson which integrates both structural and functional features)

Finally, it is important to point out that functional-notional syllabi are most readily applicable for courses and programs for learners with special purposes, such as Spanish for medical personnel or French for business people whereby a sophisticated needs assessment would

be typically implemented before beginning the program For general academic courses, however, a needs analysis is less clear-cut Most students have no immediate need to study

a foreign language, and the challenge for the course designer is to predict the students' needs The chief question they ask themselves is: What will be the future uses of a language for the majority of students? In fact, some will travel or even live and work in a country where the language is spoken, while others will need a knowledge of how languages work and strategies for learning another language more quickly Whatever the needs, national polls of adults and students indicate that they want to learn to communicate, above all else

An Application of the Functional-Notional Approach

On the following page is an example of a “beginner” lesson plan based on the

functional-notional approach involving the language functions of “requesting assistance” and “complying with such requests” Specifically, asking for directions and agreeing to give directions

(Please see Appendix C for a brief guide to designing a functional-notional syllabus)

GIVING DIRECTIONS

Presentation of a brief dialogue or several mini-dialogues, preceded by a motivation to the learners'

probable community experience and a discussion of the function and situation-people, roles, setting,

topic, and the informality or formality of the language which the function and situation demand

PRE-LISTENING ACTIVITIES

Look at the pictures above and guess what these people are talking about

Do you think the girls in picture 1 and 2 are asking for directions in the same way?

If you want to get to the nearest bus stop, how would you ask: a a small child; b an old gentleman? WHILE-LISTENING ACTIVITIES

Listen to the dialogues and check your guesses POST-LISTENING ACTIVITIES

1 Questions and answers based on the dialogues and on the pupils' personal experience

Answer the following questions:

Why do the girls in picture 1 and 2 ask for directions in a different way?

When do we use informal questions like 'Where is ?'

When do we use formal questions like 'Would you ?', ' Could you ?'

Which way would you use to ask your teachers for directions? Why? 2 Oral practice of the dialogues

Take roles and repeat/act out the dialogues GUIDED COMMUNICATION

Give additional examples in situation and stimulate learners to generalize

You are lost in a foreign city

Ask a policeman how to get to your hotel

FREE COMMUNICATION

Elicit free conversation and evaluate learning DIALOGUE 1:

Girl: Is there a movie somewhere around?

Boy: Sure It's over there

Girl: Thanks a lot DIALOGUE 2:

Girl: Excuse me Could you tell me where the nearest telephone is?